Study Sponsorship Abroad

What study sponsorship abroad means

Study sponsorship abroad (الابتعاث), also called employer sponsored study, is an arrangement in which an organisation pays the costs of an employee’s studies, or grants the employee study leave, so that the employee completes those studies and then returns to work. It is an arrangement between an employer and a worker of that employer. It differs from government scholarship programmes, which are run by separate bodies on separate conditions. In the sources we reviewed, we found no text setting out the conditions, bodies or durations of those government programmes, and the definition of study sponsorship abroad does not extend to them.

An employer that sponsors a worker’s study faces two questions: what it gains in return for what it spends, and what binds the worker after returning. The Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) and its Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) address both.

Study sponsorship and the training proportion under Article 43 of the Labor Law

Article 43 of the Labor Law requires every employer to qualify or train, from among its Saudi workers, the proportion set by a decision of the Minister. The closing words of Article 43 of the Labor Law then settle where a sponsored worker stands: Saudi workers who are completing their studies count within that proportion where the employer bears the cost of the study.

Article 15 bis of the Implementing Regulation, which implements Article 43 of the Labor Law, gives two forms. In the first, the organisation grants the worker study leave that is not deducted from the worker’s annual leave days. In the second, the employer pays the cost of the worker’s education. In either form, a worker who has completed the studies counts within the proportion prescribed for the training and qualification of the organisation’s Saudi workers.

Study sponsorship is therefore not spending that sits outside the training duty. Where one of the two forms applies, Article 43 of the Labor Law counts the sponsored worker within that duty.

Repealed figures that still circulate about study sponsorship

Published material on the training proportion can repeat two figures: that the duty begins at an organisation employing 50 workers or more, and that the proportion is at least 12% of its workers each year. That was the wording of Article 43 of the Labor Law before its amendment, and it applied until 19 February 2025.

The amendment made by Royal Decree M/44 removed both figures. Article 43 of the Labor Law now carries no headcount threshold and no percentage: it refers the proportion to a decision of the Minister, and it leaves the criteria and general rules to the Implementing Regulation. One error in writing on this subject is a figure that was correct in its time being repeated as the rule in force.

The effect on study sponsorship is direct. The rule in Article 43 of the Labor Law that counts a sponsored worker within the proportion still stands, and the amendment did not touch it. What changed is the proportion itself. In the sources we reviewed, we found no ministerial decision that sets it, so no figure is given. An employer that wants to calculate how far a sponsorship brings it towards its duty is working towards a proportion that the sources we reviewed do not state. The one statement the text supports is that the proportion is set by a decision of the Minister, and that the Labor Law no longer fixes a number.

Before any number comes a duty that does not depend on one. Article 42 of the Labor Law requires every employer to put in place a policy for training and qualifying its Saudi workers, in order to raise their skills and improve their level in technical, administrative, vocational and other work. That duty applies to every employer, with no threshold, and it is addressed to the employer’s Saudi workers, not to the whole workforce. The policy is required whether or not a proportion has been announced, and study sponsorship is one of the measures that can be built into it.

Study sponsorship abroad under Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation

Paragraph 8 of Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation, which implements Article 42 of the Labor Law, allows the employer to hold training at the workplace where trainers accredited by the competent body are available, or to entrust it to a training centre or institute accredited by the competent body. The same paragraph provides that the training may take place outside the Kingdom or inside it. The text speaks of training, and training outside the Kingdom is expressly within it.

The service condition after a study sponsorship

For an employer’s own worker, the condition of continued service sits in paragraph 6 of Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation. Where the organisation stipulates that the worker continue working after the training ends, the stipulation must not exceed a period equal to the length of the training programme if the employment contract is for an indefinite term, or the remainder of the contract term if the contract is for a fixed term. How the two kinds of contract differ is covered in our guide to fixed term and indefinite term contracts.

Under an indefinite term contract, an employer that writes a commitment of five years in return for a programme of one year has gone beyond the limit set by the Implementing Regulation. The measure of that limit is the duration, not the amount spent.

Paragraph 7 of Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation adds a further duty: the trainee is not to be charged any expenses related to the training. Article 16 of the Implementing Regulation, which implements Article 44 of the Labor Law, then sets out the cases in which the employer may charge the worker the training or qualification costs spent on the worker:

1. The worker decides to end the training or qualification before its scheduled date without a legitimate excuse.
2. The contract is terminated during the training or qualification period in one of the cases in Article 80 of the Labor Law, other than its paragraph 6.
3. The worker resigns, or leaves work in a case other than those in Article 81 of the Labor Law, during the training or qualification period.

Those cases under Articles 80 and 81 of the Labor Law are covered in our guide to dismissal without an award and leaving work without notice. In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision for the employer’s own worker that sets what is repaid when a stipulated period of service after the training is not served. The three cases above concern ending the training early or events during the training period.

Study sponsorship and Article 48 of the Labor Law

Paragraph 2 of Article 48 of the Labor Law provides that, once the period of training or qualification is complete, the employer may require the trainee to work for the employer for a period equal to the training period. If the trainee refuses or declines to work that period, or part of it, the trainee must pay the employer the training costs the employer bore, or a share of them in proportion to the period remaining.

Where Article 48 of the Labor Law sits matters. It is in the second chapter of Part Four of the Labor Law (الباب الرابع), the chapter on the qualification and training contract (عقد التأهيل والتدريب) made with persons who are not the employer’s workers. The provisions for the employer’s own workers are Articles 42 to 44 of the Labor Law and the articles of the Implementing Regulation under them, described above. A sponsored worker who remains under an employment contract falls under those provisions, and Article 48 of the Labor Law reaches a sponsorship only where it is made under a qualification and training contract. Whether a particular arrangement is such a contract depends on the parties and on the contract itself, not on the name given to the arrangement. The same distinction arises for knowledge based pay, where training is also funded by the employer.

Pro rata repayment under a study sponsorship training contract

In paragraph 2 of Article 48 of the Labor Law, the words on a share in proportion to the period remaining decide the amount, and they can be the first words lost when the paragraph is shortened. The text does not make repayment the full cost in every case. It sets what remains of the equal period against what was spent. Take a training contract for a programme of 12 months, whose costs of SAR 60,000 the organisation bore, with an equal period of 12 months stipulated:

• After the programme, the trainee works 5 months and then declines the rest.
• The period remaining is 12 minus 5 = 7 months.
• Its share of the equal period is 7 ÷ 12 = 58.3%.
• The amount due is 7 ÷ 12 × 60,000 = SAR 35,000, not SAR 60,000.

The reference to part of the equal period, in the same paragraph, is what brings a partial refusal within the rule at all. Without it, a trainee who worked five months could argue that something had been performed and that the rule therefore fell away entirely. Together, the reference to part of the period and the words on a proportional share keep the text balanced: a partial refusal is accounted for, and accounted for in proportion.

Article 16 bis (2) of the Implementing Regulation, which implements Article 48 of the Labor Law, lists three cases in which the employer may require the trainee to bear the training or qualification expenses, or a share in proportion to the period remaining, unless the training contract provides otherwise:

1. The trainee decides to end the training or qualification before its scheduled date without a legitimate excuse.
2. The trainee refuses or declines to work for the employer for a period equal to the training period, or part of it.
3. The training contract is ended under the first paragraph of Article 16 bis (2) of the Implementing Regulation, which concerns rescission during the training period in one of the cases in Article 80 of the Labor Law, other than its paragraph 6.

In the other direction, the second paragraph of Article 16 bis (2) of the Implementing Regulation allows the trainee to end the contract without paragraph 2 of Article 48 of the Labor Law applying, where the organisation did not honour the trainee’s rights stated in the training contract, did not enable the trainee to receive the training needed, or where the trainee suffered behavioural abuse of any kind from the employer or the organisation’s workers without the employer taking the necessary action. The trainee must then notify the person responsible for training of the reason for ending the contract.

Ending a study sponsorship training contract under Article 48 of the Labor Law

Paragraph 1 of Article 48 of the Labor Law governs ending the contract itself, and it can be cited in part in a way that makes it wider than it is. It allows the employer to end the qualification or training contract where the employer establishes that the trainee lacks the aptitude or the ability to complete the programmes usefully, on the basis of periodic evaluation reports prepared by the organisation providing the training. The trainee also has the right to end the contract. Whichever party wishes to end it must notify the other at least one week before the date set for ending it, and neither party may claim compensation from the other unless the contract contains a provision to that effect.

Three qualifications in that paragraph can be lost when it is shortened:

• Periodic evaluation reports. They are a condition of the employer’s right, not documentation that is merely advisable. An employer that ends the contract without them has not used the right the paragraph gives.
• A week’s notice. It binds whichever party ends the contract. It is not a step for the employer alone, and not a step for the trainee alone.
• Compensation. It is due only where the contract provides for it. The starting point is no compensation, and assuming an automatic entitlement on termination reverses the rule.

The amendment made by Royal Decree M/44 also removed the trainee’s guardian or custodian from those who may end the contract, so a guardian’s right to end a training contract is no longer part of the text.

Study sponsorship and the closed list in Article 49 of the Labor Law

Article 49 of the Labor Law lists the provisions of the Law that apply to the qualification and training contract: annual leave and official holidays, the maximum working hours, daily rest periods and weekly rest, occupational safety and health rules, work injuries and their conditions, and whatever the Minister decides.

The closure of the list is the rule. Nothing outside it is inferred, and applying the end of service award, the wage, the notice period or compensation for unfair dismissal to that contract adds to a text that names what applies item by item. The silence is deliberate, not an omission on our part, because the Labor Law reaches this contract only within the limits of the special provisions written for it. The same chapter shapes rotational training when it is given under a qualification and training contract.

The point matters for study sponsorship in particular. By the definition above, the sponsored employee is an existing worker with an employment contract, and the provisions of that employment contract continue to apply. The list in Article 49 of the Labor Law concerns the qualification and training contract where one exists. It does not displace an employment contract in force or take its place.

Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, amended Articles 42, 43, 44, 46, 47 and 48 of the Labor Law. That decree’s amendment of Article 42 of the Labor Law did not alter the duty, and it left paragraph 2 of Article 48 of the Labor Law as it was. That decree did not amend Article 49 of the Labor Law.

Writing a study sponsorship agreement

The practical effect of study sponsorship comes down to two points. What is spent on a Saudi worker’s study is not only a general expense: under Article 43 of the Labor Law it has a place in the training proportion, and under paragraph 6 of Article 15 of the Implementing Regulation it can be matched by a period of continued service that has a ceiling. Writing the agreement before the money is spent can avoid a later dispute in the labour courts.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.

Related terms

• Knowledge Based Pay
• Rotational Training
• ADDIE Model
• Human Capital ROI
• Retention Bonus